Will wind turbines soon be part of the scenery on Mount Christie?

Kaleden residents may someday be looking across Skaha Lake at a wind farm if an Ontario firm proves up the resource.

Windstream Energy, a developer of commercial wind power based out of Burlington, Ontario, has applied to the Land Resource Management Branch for an application to erect a wind monitoring and data collection site on Mount Christie, directly east of Kaleden.

“This is an initial investigation of potential wind sites. We are looking at 13 different areas in the southern interior, from Edgewood in the east to Osoyoos and the Okanagan,” Hally Hofmeyr, Windstream Energy’s Project Coordinator said recently.

“We are in the initial stages of investigating potential sites. We aren’t intending to put up towers in the near future - we are taking a look at the area in general to see if there is any resource worth exploiting,” he added.

If initial studies in the area pan out this year, Hofmyr said the company might look at Mount Christie next winter as a monitoring site.

“I think it’s promising,” he said of the possibility of developing wind power in the Okanagan.

“There’s definitely an interest in it out there,” he said. “It may sound surprising, but B.C. is proving to be a tough place to create alternative energy projects. The legislation is in place that endorses it, but recent utility commission decisions have run counter to the idea, and that has created a bit of a shock wave through the industry.”

Hofmeyr noted that Windstream was one of a few Canadian companies actively operating wind power projects in North America.

He said that if the company proves up viable wind resources in the area, the next step would be to follow up with an environmental study, which would take one and a half to two years.